I investigate the communication and social practices used to negotiate interactions in a variety of health and mental health contexts. Much of my work examines the situated communication practices of individuals diagnosed with neurological and psychiatric disorders to provide a grounded perspective on everyday functioning and community participation. I also examine clinical work practices and clinical reasoning to consider applications of patient-centered constructs such as shared decision making. My work informs our understanding of best practices, intervention development and implementation and therefore contains a strong applied component, particularly to inquiry in health services.

Recent work on community-engaged research

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has made great strides bringing community members and academic researchers together in partnership, and ethics is often at the forefront of this work. But should we assume that simply because community-academic partnerships are developed that they are ethical?

The first comprehensive literature review on ethics in community-engaged research that I co-authored with Elizabeth Bromley (UCLA) and Dmitry Khodyakov (RAND) -- Ethical Community-Engaged Research: A Literature Review -- was recently published in the American Journal of Public Health. We found that the ethical principles of CBPR are often synonymous with the components that define the method itself (eg., close collaboration, trust, equal decision-making power). We call for CBPR researchers to consider how to establish guidelines to ensure community-engaged work is adhering to high ethical standards.

Ch 4: Talking with Maureen: Extenders and Formulaic Language in Small Stories and Canonical Narratives

Boyd Davis & Margaret Maclagan

Ch 5: Interactional and Cognitive Resources in Dementia: A Perspective from Politeness Theory

Jackie Guendouzi & Anna Pate

Ch 6: Conflicting Demonstrations of Understanding in the Interactions of Individuals with Frontotemporal Dementia: Considering Cognitive Resources and their Implications for Caring and Communication

Lisa Mikesell

Ch 7: "In My Own Words": Writing Down Life Stories to Promote Conversation in Dementia

Ellen Bouchard Ryan, Debra Crispin, & Michelle Daigneault

Ch 8: Preparing for a Theatrical Performance: Writing Scripts and Shaping Identities in an Early Memory Loss Support Group

Heidi E. Hamilton & Marta Baffy

Ch 9: Alzheimer Pathographies: Glimpses into How People with AD and their Caregivers Text Themselves

Vaidehi Ramanathan

Ch 10: Formulaic Language and Threat: The Challenge of Empathy and Compassion in Alzheimer's Disease Interaction

Alison Wray

"Exploring the Interactional Instinct" co-edited by Anna Joaquin and John Schumann and published by Oxford University Press came out in December as part of a series -- Foundations of Human Interaction -- edited by Nick Enfield. Here's what's inside:

Chapter Title

Author(s)

Ch 1: A Unified Perspective of First and Second Language Acquisition

John H. Schumann

Ch 2: Infant Attached and Language Exposure across Cultures

Gail Fox Adams

Ch 3: Learning while Eavesdropping on the Social World

Anna Dina L. Joaquin

Ch 4: Resonance in Dialogic Interaction

Anna Dina L. Joaquin

Ch 5: Biological and Psychological Bases for Social Engagement in Second Language Use

Bahiyyih Hardacre

Ch 6: Theories of the Interactional Instinct and the Pedagogical Stance: An Integrated View of Cultural Knowledge, Interaction, and Language

Mikesell, L., Mates, A. W., Joaquin, A. D. L. Using conversation analysis to identify deviance in the interactions of atypical populations: An exploration of challenges. Language and Social Interaction Working Group (LANSI). Teachers College Columbia University, New York. October 3-4, 2014.

Bromley, E., Khodyakov, D., Mikesell, L. From Subject to Participant: Ethics and the Evolving Role of Community in Health Research. Ethics in Science panel, American Sociological Association (ASA). San Francisco, CA. August 16-19,2014.

Bromley, E., Khodyakov, D., Mikesell, L. From Subject to Participant: Ethics and the Evolving Role of Community in Health Research. AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting (ARM). San Diego, CA. June 8-10, 2014 (research poster)

Issac, A., Mikesell, L.,Bromley, E. Disrupted Discourse Cohesion and Distributed Responsibility in Face-to-Face Interactions with Individuals Diagnosed with Schizophrenia. Language and Social Interaction Working Group (LANSI), Teachers College Columbia University, New York. October 19, 2013.

Mikesell, L.Conflicting Demonstrations of Understanding in the Interactions of Individuals with Frontotemporal Dementia: Considering Cognitive Resources and their Role in Conversation. Language and Social Interaction Working Group (LANSI), Teachers College Columbia University, New York. October 18, 2013.

Mikesell, L. Pragmatic Variation of People with Schizophrenia: Implications for Psychiatry. 57th Annual International Linguistic Association (ILA), Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York. April 14, 2012.

Mikesell, L.Prosodic Features in the Discourse of an Individual with Schizophrenia and the Consequences for Turn-taking. Southern States Communication Association (SSCA), San Antonio, TX. April 13, 2012. (Top three LSI division paper)

Mikesell, L.Claims, Displays and Demonstrations of Understanding in the Interactions of Individuals with Frontotemporal Dementia: Implications for Caring and Communication. Third International Symposium on Dementia and Conversation. Folly Beach, SC: February 16-19, 2012.

Mikesell, L.A Conversation Analytic Approach to “Schizophrenic Speech”: Examining Variation in Turn Design. Language and Social Interaction Working Group (LANSI), Teachers College Columbia University, New York. October 14-15, 2011.